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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 5524610" data-attributes="member: 14159">I think the presence of fantasy races is definitely a "depends on the setting" thing.Typical D&D world, with it's expected Tolkienesque atmosphere, you bet the standard races should be there.Not every fantasy world would have them, and definitely not historic worlds.I once ran a quasi-historic game set in the 12th century in a mildly magical Europe, and had a player come up to me wanting to play an Elf.  I told him no elves, that elves and half-elves hadn't walked openly in the world for centuries and were little more than a myth now, at most PC's could be "fey blooded" which was mostly a roleplaying thing (negative prejudice from the highly superstitious and the Church) and some very minor bonuses.  He was confused and a little angry that I was running D&D and not allowing elves or dwarves, to him it was like I was saying "no fighters" or "no thieves", and he thought that the fact the system was AD&D overruled all setting considerations on races and classes.I think the "ruining" of Shadowrun is more that people expect/use it as a general cyberpunk RPG and setting with some mildly supernatural aspects, but the presence of fantasy races as core PC options and being prominent in the setting is big enough to conflict with that perception.  The design intent seems much more to be an equal blend of futuristic cyberpunk with modern fantasy.  Since you can get fantasy from D&D or a zillion other games, people often gloss over that (and since it's the most popular cyberpunk-themed games, games like Cyberpunk 2020 which are more pure cyberpunk get overlooked in the process).I think d20 Modern was hurt, a lot, by pushing Urban Arcana so hard, which threw elves, dwarves and all the D&D cliches into a modern-day game.  Why does every game, regardless of era, tech level, system or setting have to have elves, dwarves and magic?  It doesn't.</blockquote>

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